


Compost Mentis

by andmydog



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-14
Updated: 2009-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-04 10:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andmydog/pseuds/andmydog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mama Sha used to like the color red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compost Mentis

There was blood on the floor.

The kitchen table _must_ be cleared by morning, after breakfast, because Mrs Li was bringing the laundry by, and there was sure to be ironing. The boy would need his bath tonight, then, because tomorrow the tub would be dirty.

She really ought to mop this floor.

Late spring, dancing with her good, sweet boy, the mop tracing wide white swirls on the wooden floor as she chased his tiny feet. His tiny hands, tight on the handle, writing his name, and hers, the soap drying too quickly for the third.

Lugging water up the hill, and it was winter, the clean wide drifts gone black and grimy at the edges of the road, and he was leaving. The pipes had burst for want of rags to hold them together, and he was walking down the hill, leaving his warm wool coat and promises of fortune on the road.

Bastard, bastard, walking away, _leaving_, leaving for work, no, leaving to fuck other women, leaving to fuck and fuck and fuck and stumbling home months later to fuck some more, bastard fucker, she _hated_ him and his teasing smile and empty promises of fortune.

Fortune for the family that would be one bigger when he returned, tanned and well-fed, to meet the son he almost never had. She was so tired then, but the beads were lovely, green and blue and red, and he loved her very much, and he held her under the summer stars and promised that he would stay with her forever. Forever, or until the leaves fell, orange and yellow and red across the entire hillside, the trees bleeding a crackling river, not fire, not water. He was a poet at heart. He always knew just what to say.

This room was so dark. It needed a fresh coat of paint, something bright and cheery, not this drab brownish shade. What had he been thinking?

She was always hungry, but her boy never was. She took pride in that, pride in how he grew, a little weed during the summers, and still ruddy all through the snows. The garden provided for them both in the summer, and the forest in the fall, and her red dress, cut high at the sides, fed them through winter. The dong quai was bitter, with nothing to sweeten the tea, but at least it was warm, and soon spring would melt the snows, and there would be laundry to take in.

The table would need to be scrubbed after breakfast, or the ironing would be ruined.

He left her. He left her, he left _them_, that _bastard_, he was never coming back, bastard, bastard, bastard, _oh_, she _hated_ him! He took her father's money, oh, he did, and he took her mother's blessing, and he'd been gentle, oh, and he'd been good, so good, slow and warm and he'd kissed her and kissed her, and he was _beautiful_ when he smiled. A good man, a _strong_ man, shirtless in the summer sun, building a room for the child they'd start that evening. Or the next morning, or after lunch. Or the next day. They had plenty of time.

He'd never leave again. He'd stay at home, and they'd be a family now, a real family, and he would never, ever leave.

Plenty of time, and the boy would grow up strong, a good man, with his father's beautiful smile and his mother's blessing, and he'd marry a fine girl and have fat babies she would spoil and the blood on this floor would never come clean if she didn't stop screaming.

She brushed the down-soft tuft of black, black hair out of his face and wiped the trickle of milk from the corner of his mouth. He was so perfect. And one day, after his daddy made his fortune and came back home, he'd have a brother or a sister, yes he would, and it'd be his job to take care of the little one while she and daddy worked. He'd be a good big brother, she was certain. He'd be good at _everything_, anything he tried his hand at.

The summer traders were all old men and their fat wives, but this year there was a new face behind the bolts of cranberry silk. He was young, handsome, with a smile that would melt your heart (and a another smile, when her mother's back was turned, that melted her everywhere else). He was _perfect_.

And _she_ was gonna marry him.

"'Til death do us part,' she giggled, stepping over the bitch's body to go check on her darling boy.


End file.
